Adhesive Shelf Life: Early Expiration Avoidance

Working with custom adhesive tape suppliers can bring about a wide variety of benefits for many types of business. Nevertheless, this is only true for as long as the adhesives in question are able to do their job properly. Which of course is something the begins with ensuring you make the right decision in the first place, when it comes to deciding which manufacturers you work with. Nevertheless, even if you are provided with the most outstanding and appropriate products on the market, you still need to ensure that they are handled and used appropriately, to avoid their premature expiration.

The simple fact of the matter is that every adhesive product across the board will always have an expiration date which must be taken into account. There never has been and never will be such a thing as an adhesive tape or product that lasts forever. Of course, differences in terms of expiration dates can be enormous to say the least. But what’s true in all instances is that if you want to get the most out of any adhesive product, you need to be proactive when it comes to expiration and prevention thereof.

So with this in mind, what follows is a brief overview of just five tips that could help ensure your adhesive products don’t reach the end of their usable life before their time:

Read the instructions carefully

First and foremost, there is nothing more important than ensuring you read the instructions from start to finish. The reason being that whatever you need to know about storage, expiration and pretty much everything else to do with the adhesive in general, this is where you’ll find it. It’s never a good idea to simply assume you know what you’re doing and know what’s best. The very nature of custom adhesives means that there will always be significant and unique differences from one to the next. As such, you need to know exactly how to work with this particular adhesive in question, rather than simply following the usual generic ‘rules’. Find out exactly what the manufacturer has to say about handling and expiration, before getting started.

Consider storage conditions

It will always tell you in the guidelines supplied by the manufacturer where and how any adhesive product should be stored. In some instances, adhesives are extremely resilient and can be stored almost anywhere, without it having an effect on their performance and usability. By contrast, other adhesives are far more demanding and are largely guaranteed to be rendered useless, unless provided with very specific and controlled storage conditions. More often than not, it’s a case of the latter – things like temperatures and humidity having a marked effect on the quality and performance of the adhesive product in question.

Avoid opening until necessary

In most instances, the quality and performance of an adhesive product begins to deteriorate the moment the canister is opened. Having been manufactured and packaged in a protective environment, the adhesive is a guaranteed to remain at its best until opened. From that moment on however, something of a slow but steady decline typically cannot be avoided. As such, it simply makes sense to only ever open an adhesive container when it is absolutely necessary to do so. If it is possible to use one container at a time, as opposed to having several on the go at the same time, this always works out considerably more economical.

Consider possible contamination

Something else to bear in mind is the way in which the adhesive products themselves can quickly and easily become contaminated, once the container has been opened. Just as soon as the seal has been broken and the adhesive is exposed to whatever is in the surrounding environment, any number of pollutants or contaminants could make their way into the adhesive. Which in most instances will do little other than cause problems with the performance and reliability of the adhesive product in question. Always consider where and when adhesive products are used, ensuring there are safeguarded from contaminants and pollutants at all times.

Never use alternative containers

Last but not least, not only is transferring adhesive products to alternative containers a good way of affecting their quality, but it can also be downright dangerous. Unless it has been specifically stated as safe to do so by the manufacturer, it is never a good idea to use alternative containers for custom adhesive products. If they are not 100% suitable for the product in question, they should not be used under any circumstances.